The Return of Moriarty (49 page)

The time was ten minutes past eleven.

At a quarter-past eleven Crow's train drew into Wolferton station. It had hardly reached a halt before the detective was out and running, with his sergeant and the inspector from Lynn, toward the barrier and the waiting transport. He stopped for only a brief word with the drivers and constables before climbing into the coach and yelling to the driver, telling him, above the now steady hiss of rain, to “go like thunder.”

The cavalcade set off at a dangerous gallop.

It was plain to see that the Prince and Princess, let alone their guests, were enjoying the performance enormously: Princess Alexandra had squealed with delight over the doves, and the Prince guffawed when the selected playing cards magically appeared on the points of the silver star. But now Dr. Night was reaching his apogee—the great feat of levitation.

With care he mesmerized his assistant into a trance; the music shivered softly as she was placed upon the couch, and, with deep concentration, the doctor made his mystic passes. Slowly she began to float into the air.

The police cavalcade was just turning into the main gateway, and Crow, already with one hand on the carriage door, curled his fingers around the butt of his revolver.

With snorting horses, pawing hooves, and much clatter, the carriage and van came to a halt. Crow leaped down with Tanner behind him. The constables tumbled from the van, a pair of them peeling off to go with Crow, the remainder running in an attempt to seal off all possible exits.

As the floating figure of Mary McNiel descended to the couch, so Crow hammered on the front door.

Moriarty, as Dr. Night, bowed to the enthusiastic applause that burst from the private audience. Amid the clapping he could hear the Prince of Wales cheering, “Bravo! Bravo!”

He made one deep bow, a sweeping act of obeisance, his eyes lifting toward the bearded and smiling Prince, and his right hand moving back to grasp the Borchardt, thumb pushing the catch off safety. Then, as he straightened, Moriarty drew out the weapon.

As the Professor's hand moved up, finger tightening on the trigger, there was a loud babble of voices from outside. For a second, Moriarty hesitated. Then the doors burst open.

The Prince turned, half coming to his feet, a confused grumble of words rolling across the audience. Moriarty brought his hand fully up, squinting aim down the barrel, but his eyes were drawn to the doorway where several dripping-wet men were pushing their way past three flunkeys. The leading man, tall, in a soaking Inverness, shouted, “Stop. Stop or I fire.”

Moriarty paused, then, in expected retaliation, moved the pistol a few inches to the left of his aim, and squeezed the trigger.

Crow heard the wood and plaster splatter to his left as the bullet whined into the wall. He took quick aim and loosed off a shot with his service revolver; the bullet smashed through the windows behind the dark and bearded figure standing amid the magical apparatus.

There was screaming now, and Moriarty knew there was but one course to take. If he stayed, death was inevitable. To run was more prudent. Another bullet, closer this time, fragmenting the silver star used for the card trick. Somebody shouted, “Down. Get down.” Then another voice again commanded, “Stop.”

The Professor waited for no more. One bound and he was behind the east bay-window drapes, and with a leap, turning in the air, went crashing backward through the glass.

Crow was dashing pell-mell down the ballroom, pistol up and his wet boots slipping on the polished parquet. He stopped short for another shot at the fleeting figure, but the revolver bucked in his hand a second after the crunch and tinkle of glass signaled that Moriarty was through the window.

The Professor rolled as he hit the ground, feeling the shuddering jar, and then the enveloping dampness. He scrabbled to his feet, the sound of shouts and screams still coming from behind him, and the piercing shriek of a police whistle cleaving the darkness.

It took him only a second to get his bearings and run toward where he knew Harkness was waiting with the cab. He rounded the building, and heard the snort of the horse; then, out of the blackness, came a uniformed policeman. Automatically Moriarty brought his gun hand up and fired, smiling into the rain as he heard the gasp and saw the figure disappear, to go rolling onto the wet ground.

“Here. Quickly, Professor,” Harkness called, and the next moment he was in the cab with the driver whipping up the horses just as another shot ripped into the woodwork.

Crow and Tanner had followed Moriarty through the window, and indeed it was Crow who loosed off the final shot at the fast-departing cab. Now he was running for the police carriage, shouting at the driver to turn the horses and get after the hansom.

Harkness peered through the heavy rain and murk that surrounded them, urging the horse forward with his whip. For him this was the most difficult part; the roads outside the boundaries of the estate he knew backward, having spent the whole week driving them night and day. Soaked to the bone, he hunched forward on his seat, watching for the gates ahead.

They came up quickly through the film of water, the porter running into the drive waving his arms, but Harkness flicked the whip over his horse's flanks and drove on so that the porter had to leap for his life. Behind him, Harkness heard a shot—the Professor potting hopefully at the sprawled porter.

Then they were out, turning and rumbling off toward Dersingham, eating up the road, with the wind and rain stinging the driver's face, roaring in his ears above the rattle of the cab and the metal hoofbeats of the horse.

The gatehouse porter was lying, drenched, beside the drive, part of his shoulder ripped away by the Professor's parting shot. But he was conscious enough to cry that the cab had taken the Dersingham road. Crow swore, shouting to him that there'd be others along in a moment.

The police driver called back that he did not think much of their chances on a black and wet night like this. But Crow, infuriated with failure, screamed at him to go on.

An hour or so later, going around in circles, riding back and forth through Dersingham and along the surrounding roads he knew it was no good. Tomorrow they would mount some kind of a search for the cab but Crow knew it would be useless. It was at this moment, standing by the side of the road, his clothes sticking to his body, hair plastered over his head and down his face, that Inspector Angus McCready Crow dedicated his life's work to the capture, imprisonment, and final execution of Professor James Moriarty, or any man who lived under that name.

At Dersingham they turned left, heading toward the sea. After a mile or so Harkness slowed, in order to cross the Hunstanton Railway at Dersingham station. It was a mile further on that they saw the light, held swinging by the roadside.

Ember came out of the darkness, holding the lamp high.

“You're all right, Professor?” he shouted through the wind and rain.

Moriarty swore, stepping down from the cab and wrapping around him the cloak Harkness had placed in the back of the cab.

“Did you—” started Ember.

“Crow,” spat Moriarty. “Crow, by heaven. He was onto me.”

“We got away though,” chimed Harkness with relish.

“Aye, we did. But I'll be back.”

Ember clutched at Moriarty's arm.

“We must go quickly. They'll not wait forever. It's nearly two miles, and heavy going at that.”

Moriarty nodded, raising his hand in farewell to Harkness as Ember lifted the lamp and began the long trudge, guiding his master across the sand and mud flats to where the dinghy waited at the entrance between Wolferton Creek and the Inner Roads.

Snug in their bed in the small tavern some three miles out of Leamington Spa, Fanny Paget smiled in her sleep, rolled over and threw an arm across her husband's chest.

Tomorrow, she thought dimly within sleep. Tomorrow we can look for work. The new life is here, and we are free.

Saturday, April 28, 1894

(THE SECOND EXILE)

MORIARTY GAZED OUT
on the shoreline as it receded into the morning mist. They had followed the coast through the early hours, hugging it and making good use of the stiff breeze, wallowing a little from the heavy swell. Now,
Le Conflit,
an old French-built fishing smack that Grisombre had sent for him was pointing her bows toward home. For Moriarty it meant safety.

Ember had been sick from the moment they had got into the dinghy to row out to
Le Conflit,
and was now propped, green, in one corner of the wheelhouse. Moriarty drew his eyes back from the dipping shoreline and smiled. In a few hours he would be in Belgium. Tomorrow Paris, next week Marseilles and a boat to America. He glanced back again. It would not be long before he would return.

He thought of the house and estate in Berkshire. Spear would be just waking, next to his Bridget. Today he would doubtless make arrangements for the cash carriers to pay their money to some house in London, convenient for it to be brought down to the country. With Parker gone there would have to be much rearranging among the lurkers; one of the Jacobs boys would perhaps take Parker's place. The lurkers would become more important now that the headquarters was moved out of London.

He felt a twinge of annoyance at last night's failure. But something like that would not go against him. If anything, the attempt would only serve to show him to good advantage—for who else but Moriarty could have walked into Sandringham and out again, with the police baying at his heels. He thought about that for a moment, wondering in passing what had become of Mary McNiel. She would live. Girls like Mary McNiel always survived.

In London they would be waking up also, the markets setting up stalls for Saturday's trading—in Lambeth and the Elephant and Castle; Petticoat Lane, Berwick Street and out at Shepherd's Bush. The costermongers would be carting their wares about, and the more fashionable shops—the drapers, grocers, haberdashers, tailors and dressmakers—taking down their shutters. The whores would still be sleeping, their turn to come at evening; and the public houses, taverns and inns would already be alive with people.

The dippers would be at it by now, and the macers and bullies: his dippers, his macers, his bullies.

Moriarty laughed aloud, for as he thought of all this trade and work beginning, he also reflected how, at some point during the day, pairs of hard young men—one of them always carrying a black bag—would pass among these people, stopping at stalls, in shops and restaurants, public houses and thieves' kitchens. They would smile quietly at the proprietors and stall holders, or at the whores' cash carriers, and say wherever they went, “We've come for the Professor's contribution.”

Better still, it was not just happening in London, but also in other cities—among tradesfolk and criminals alike—in Manchester and Liverpool, Birmingham, Newcastle, Leeds, and soon further still, in Paris, Lyons, Marseilles, Rome, Naples, Milan, Berlin, Hamburg, right across the Continent—and maybe further, even to the new world of America.

As the spray came up over the ploughing bows of
Le Conflit,
Moriarty felt truly master of his world. For the fine mist that spread about the ship seemed to carry with it those words of comfort—“We've come. Come for the Professor's contribution.”